New SPLC Report: 'Patriot' Movement Explodes

March 08, 2012

Mark Potok

The number of antigovernment “Patriot” groups grew at an astounding pace last year, as it has in all three years of the Obama presidency, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) annual count of extremist groups, released today. The number of these groups rose from 824 in 2010 to 1,274 last year.

This dramatic expansion of the radical right was driven by fears related to economic dislocation, the country’s changing racial makeup, and the prospect of four more years under our first black president. The campaign season, with its vitriolic rhetoric, has also contributed to the overheated atmosphere that is fostering these groups. In addition, many politicians and other public figures increasingly have been pushing conspiracy theories and demonizing rhetoric into the political mainstream.

The report on SPLC’s annual count and review of the last year in American extremism may be found here. The table of contents for the entire new issue of the SPLC's Intelligence Report is here. What follows are synopses of the major stories found in the new edition.

Last year, little noticed by the mass media, a Massachusetts man burned himself to death to protest treatment of men by family courts. The death opened a window into a dark world, sometimes called the “manosphere,” of woman-hating “men’s rights” activists.